In Time, We Bleed
by Pineapple Bacardi
Summary: Arthur finds Merlin in a nursing home in the heart of London on a warm spring day in 2017. Tragic reincarnation here. Merlin/Arthur.


**Notes: **I don't know what possessed me to write this. It's so depressing so if you're in a mood, stay away, this will bring you over the edge probably. Tragic and tears warning. It left me feeling pretty down, no happy endings here. Blame Jeff Buckley's _Hallelujah _and VAST's _One More Day. _They were my triggers.

o.

Arthur finds Merlin in a nursing home in the heart of London on a warm spring day in 2017.

o.

Merlin's eyes are unfocused, unseeing, as he stares out the window. Arthur sits down next to him. He looks just like Arthur remembered, eyes wide and blue, high cheekbones, outrageous ears, black hair tousled, still too scrawny for his own good but beautiful. The empty expression on Merlin's face scares Arthur.

"Merlin? Look at me, please."

Merlin's vacant eyes turn to Arthur, not a single emotion appearing on the sorcerer's face. "Who are you?"

o.

Arthur returns again the next day. He talks to the doctor, who shakes his head, looking sad, saying all these things Arthur tries to block out: _we have to sedate him at time _and_ we have never seen dementia in a person this young before. _Arthur cringes at words like _feeding tube, respiratory distress, terminal, psychosis, symptoms of schizophrenia._

"What's your name?" Merlin asks, eyes glassy, voice distant as Arthur wraps a blanket over Merlin's slight shoulders, skin pale underneath the white T-shirt Merlin wears.

"Arthur," he says.

"Arthur," Merlin whispers. "Why do you come here?"

Arthur closes his eyes, grief curling inside of him. "Because there's no where else I'd rather be."

o.

Arthur wonders if maybe the world finally got to Merlin. It makes Arthur wonder what the whole point with _destiny _was when it only wrecked all of their lives like this. When it destroyed them all like _this._

o.

"There is a dragon underneath the castle," Merlin says one day in July. Arthur's busy putting up a painting over the bed and Merlin's staring at him. The painting's rather ugly and sort of animated-looking, but the picture depicts a castle and a knight and it reminds Arthur a little bit of Camelot.

Arthur freezes and turns around. "Merlin?"

Merlin laughs darkly. "Arthur would kill me if he ever knew."

Arthur smiles, daring to hope, and kneels next to Merlin, gripping his hands. "Merlin, do you remember?" 

Merlin just stares at Arthur, frowning, for a second. "What's your name?" Merlin asks a moment later. 

o.

Arthur comes to the nursing home one summer morning to find Merlin unconscious, with a tube down his throat and a heart monitor by his side, beeping echoing his heartbeats, heavy bandage around Merlin's wrists. The sorcerer looks so fragile and small where he lies, not at all like the powerful warlock once upon a time in the kingdom of Camelot.

"We found him this morning in the bathroom," the doctor says to Arthur. "He wasn't breathing and he had slit his wrists."

Arthur wants to scream, he wants to fall upon his knees, yell and beg and tear at the earth until the ground underneath him opens up.

o.

"Do you remember when we went looking for Balinor?" Merlin asks Arthur one day. The scars are gruesome and horrible on Merlin's wrists, but Merlin is doing a lot better. These days, Merlin remembers as often as he forgets.

Arthur puts down the cup of tea he's been drinking from. "Yes, Merlin, I remember."

"I don't," Merlin chokes and trembles, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't remember why we went looking for him. I don't remember, Arthur."

Arthur grips Merlin's shoulders and pulls the sorcerer against him. "It's all right, Merlin. We're going to fix this."

o.

Merlin is lucid for one whole day at the beginning of September, just when the green leaves are starting to fade into autumn redness. Arthur takes Merlin out for the day, but the doctor advises against it and Arthur yells at the doctor some, because he knows Merlin won't have a lot of time.

"It's all right Arthur," Merlin says.

"No, it's not all right," Arthur says angrily. "We're going out."

And they do. They walk around in London, they laugh, they bicker, they kiss. It's like old times. It's like everything's right in the world again. They return to the nursing home as the sun starts to set. Merlin falls asleep in Arthur's arms and Arthur wakes up the next day with Merlin staring at him uncertainly.

"Who are you?" Merlin asks, almost curiously.

o.

Arthur wonders when Merlin finally broke. Arthur wonders where _he _was, he wonders if it was because of Arthur. He wonders what Merlin's last sane thought was.

o.

"I don't like the painting," Merlin says, irritated.

"Merlin, it's a castle," Arthur responds, staring at the painting over the wall, almost feeling offended.

"I don't care," Merlin insists, crossing his arms over his chest, looking defiant. "I want it out of here."

"It looks like Camelot, don't you think?" Arthur says, desperate to find some kind of trigger, something to get Merlin to remember again.

Merlin stands up, grabs the painting off the wall and throws it onto the bed angrily. "I am so tired of this shit. I hate it. I hate castles and I hate swords and I hate _you."_

Arthur flinches at the words and walks over to Merlin.

Merlin looks a little taken back as he looks at Arthur. "Who are you? Why do you come here all the time?"

o.

Merlin is frail and shaking in his arms.

"Everything is so messed-up," Merlin sobs into Arthur's neck. "I think I'm losing my mind. Arthur, I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting. Why do I keep forgetting?"

"I don't know," Arthur whispers sorrowfully because he _doesn't know _and can he say? Life keeps doing this to them, destiny keeps screwing them over and Arthur doesn't understand _why._

_Why?_

"Don't leave," Merlin breathes into Arthur's ear.

Arthur kisses Merlin's temple.

"I'll never leave you."

o.

"There is a lake beyond the small grove with the flowers, oleander grows there, I think," Merlin says. They're walking on the path in the park next to the nursing home. Arthur's gripping Merlin's arm tightly as they walk, making sure Merlin won't slip on the icy snow.

"Yes?" Arthur's breath is visible in the cool December air.

"There is a lake," Merlin repeats, his voice sounding haunted. "Take me up. Cast me away."

o.

Arthur holds Merlin, kisses his hair as Merlin mumbles in his sleep.

"Destiny," the sorcerer whispers.

o.

Some days Merlin is better and some days he is worse. Sometimes Merlin is there and sometimes he's not. Sometimes Merlin's the same, vibrant young sorcerer Arthur once knew in Camelot and sometimes Merlin's just a shadow of someone he used to be. They're only lost moments but it's all Arthur has. What else can he do? Where else will he go?

o.

"I will keep forgetting," Merlin says to Arthur after they rush into Merlin's room at the nursing home. It's pouring outside and they didn't make it inside in time and now they're wet, clothes soaked. Arthur hands Merlin a towel. "You deserve better than this," Merlin says, looking sad. "I will keep forgetting, Arthur. I don't want you to live your life like this."

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur hisses, suddenly angry. "Don't tell me what to do. I decide what to do with my life."

"I'm not sure why this is happening to me," Merlin says, looking down, drying his arms on the towel. "I guess I finally broke. I was bound to lose my mind sooner or later, right?" The corner of Merlin's mouth turns upwards, straining into a twisted smile.

"Merlin," Arthur says, pained.

Merlin leans forward, running his hands through Arthur's hair, pulling him against the sorcerer. Merlin's lips are gentle, yet forceful, as they press against Arthur's pliant mouth. Arthur responds, kissing Merlin almost frantically, forcing the sorcerer's mouth open, sliding his tongue in, tasting and mapping, savouring the taste. Merlin moans against the onslaught and they grip each other desperately, hands going underneath clothing, touching and feeling skin. Arthur pulls back reluctantly, spilling feather-light kisses down Merlin's jaw and Merlin sighs happily.

"I miss _you_," Arthur mumbles, the last word breaking.

"Stay with me tonight," Merlin says, voice soft. "It lasts longer. The memories last longer when you're here. It makes more sense." Arthur kisses him again. "Stay with me tonight."

Arthur does.


End file.
